Quotes by Speakers - Page 41

When you release yourself from the need for approval and control you can stop punishing yourself and others.
Bryant McGill
All defensiveness stems from the need to be right and frustration over not being able to control others.
Bryant McGill
Western "freedom" is a sophisticated form of control.
Bryant McGill
When you release the illusion of control, you begin an effortless free-fall toward a grand reunion with your original self.
Bryant McGill
We live beneath many layers. Some are for our protection, and some are for our control.
Russell Eric Dobda
We are called to fear only God. There is an important reason for this. What we fear is what we're subject to; our fears define our master. Where there is no fear, there is no control.
Erwin Raphael McManus
You'll drive yourself crazy trying to control something that isn't yours to control. Let go. Free yourself. Allow your mind and energy to focus on something positive... to build something beautiful.
Steve Maraboli
It was like being in a car with the gas pedal slammed down to the floor and nothing to do but hold on and pretend to have some semblance of control. But control was something I'd lost a long time ago.
Nic Sheff
Hard times define one's character.
Ken Poirot
I prayed for my heart to soften, to forgive her, and love her for what she did give me--life, great values, a lot of tennis lessons, and the best she could do. Unfortunately, the best she could do was terrible, thee the Minister of Silly Walks trying to raise an extremely sensitive young girl, and my heart remained hardened toward her. [p. 46]
Anne Lamott
I've spent my whole life trying to get over having had Nikki for a mother, and I have to say that from day one after she died, I liked having a dead mother much more than having an impossible one. [p. 47]
Anne Lamott
If you are in a pit of stress or despair, don’t succumb to defeat. Don’t accept that difficult place as your fate. Even though God has allowed you to be there right now, he never intended for you to live there. Our God is bigger then whatever problem you are facing. The only way to see past the problem is to believe that he has not forgotten or abandoned you and that, at the exact time that he has ordained, he will reach down and pick you up.
Tracie Miles
Do not despair. Have faith. It is going to work out and you will be delivered.
Bryant McGill
Good things come to us just when we need them the most, like an angel throwing us a life-preserver before we go under the waters of despair.
Bryant McGill
In the moments of your deepest need, despair and desperation, what you need more than any other thing, is calm and faith.
Bryant McGill
The seemingly most hateful, those on the front lines of despair, are mere instruments of sinister forces, which pull the manipulative strings of manufactured supremacy.
T.F. Hodge
My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people.
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
Tracks were adumbrations of the energy of life all about us, the recent history book of wilderness.
Shannon Huffman Polson
The carnistic schema, which twists information so that nonsense seems to make perfect sense, also explains why we fail to see the absurdities of the system. Consider, for instance, advertising campaigns in which a pig dances joyfully over the fire pit where he or she is to be barbecued, or chickens wear aprons while beseeching the viewer to eat them. And consider the Veterinarian's Oath of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 'I solemnly swear to use my...skills for the...relief of animal suffering,' in light of the fact that the vast majority of veterinarians eat animals simply because they like the way meat tastes. Or think about how poeple won't replace their hamburgers with veggie burgers, even if the flavor is identical, because they claim that, if they try hard enough, they can detect a subtle difference in texture. Only when we deconstruct the carnistic schema can we see the absurdity of placing our preference for a flawless re-creation of a textural norm over the lives and deaths of billions of others.
Melanie Joy
The ten billion animals that are killed every year for meat and the virulent consequences of contemporary animal agricultural practices remain conspicuously absent from public discourse. How often have you seen media exposés on the violent treatment of farm animals and the corrupt practices of carnistic industry? Compare this with the amount of coverage afforded fluctuating gas prices or Hollywood fashion blunders. Most of us are more outraged over having to pay five cents more for a gallon of gas than over the fact that billions of animals, millions of humans, and the entire ecosystem are systematically exploited by an industry that profits from such gratuitous violence. And most of us know more about what the stars wore to the Oscars than we do about the animals we eat.
Melanie Joy
The path of the norm is the path of least resistance; it is the route we take when we're on auto-pilot and don't even realize we're following a course of action that we haven't consciously chosen. Most people who eat meat have no idea that they're behaving in accordance with the tenets of a system that has defined many of their values, preferences, and behaviors. What they call 'free choice' is, in fact, the result of a narrowly obstructed set of options that have been chosen for them. They don't realize, for instance, that they have been taught to value human life so far above certain forms of nonhuman life that it seems appropriate for their taste preferences to supersede other species' preference for survival.
Melanie Joy
Often, vegan advocates assume that a person's defensiveness is the result of selfishness or apathy, when in fact it is much more likely the result of systematic and intensive social conditioning.
Melanie Joy
Without our Spiritual nature, life's a gift we can never fully unwrap."~ With Thine Own Eyes: Why Imitate the Past, When We Can Investigate Reality?
Ron Tomanio
Stay away from people who gossip and spread rumors. They are choosing the path of emotional bullying and negativity.
Steve Maraboli
Deja Vu confirms a faithful path worth taking.
T.F. Hodge
If you are not on your path of purpose, you will only have misery in your life.
Bryant McGill
I have these secret pangs of shame about being single, like I wasn't good enough to get a husband. Rita reminded me of something I'd told her once, about the five rules of the world as arrived at by this Catholic priest named Tom Weston. The first rule, he says, is that you must not have anything wrong with you or anything different. The second one is that if you do have something wrong with you, you must get over it as soon as possible. The third rule is that if you can't get over it, you must pretend that you have. The fourth rule is that if you can't even pretend that you have, you shouldn't show up. You should stay home, because it's hard for everyone else to have you around. And the fifth rule is that if you are going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to feel ashamed.So Rita and I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.
Anne Lamott
Real education is about revolution.
Bryant McGill
One person really can make a difference. Each person is the revolution.
Bryant McGill
Revolution starts in the mind. Question Everything!
Bryant McGill
The revolution of today is the oppression of tomorrow.
Bryant McGill
Revolution is simple. It's like a breath; out with the old, and in with the new.
Bryant McGill
Like racism and all forms of prejudice, bigotry against transgendered people is a deadly carcinogen. We are pitted against each other in order to keep us from seeing each other as allies. Genuine bonds of solidarity can be forged between people who respect each other's differences and are willing to fight their enemy together. We are the class that does the work of the world, and can revolutionize it. We can win true liberation.
Leslie Feinberg
Think about it: virtually every atrocity in the history of humankind was enabled by a populace that turned away from a reality that seemed too painful to face, while virtually every revolution for peace and justice has been made possibly by a group of people who chose to bear witness and demanded that others bear witness as well.
Melanie Joy
Yesterday I felt like shit, so I rode my bike around town and repeatedly grafittied “The revolution is not being televised” in paint pen. It was a “pointless” action, but it nonetheless healed me to do this. It was an act of love for that “hooligan” Arundhati Roy. It was an act of self-love. I don’t expect it to change the world, but on the other hand, I know it will.
Inga Muscio
As the master builder of your own life, build an open space, with room for your soul to breath, and be free.
Bryant McGill
Love is a practice of self-mastery.
Bryant McGill
Every part of you is a master intelligence and is speaking truth to you, and through you, at all times.
Bryant McGill
The first step to happiness and personal mastery is to start now.
Robbie Vorhaus
Your uniqueness is the master key that unlocks the hidden treasures of your lifetime.
Bryant McGill
The master in us all lives behind the masks and roles and wounds and beliefs. It calls us to live deep, full, radical lives. It asks us not to wait until we are told by anyone that we have arrived. It invites us forward, across the line of fear and unworthiness, to experience mastery in this moment--as much as we can right now. To learn from stumbling. To rise again and keep walking until we no longer notice our feet in their effortless dance. But mostly not to wait until some distant, perfect someday. Mastery is now.
Jacob Nordby
Loving is like any other art-craft where the masters have carefully practiced and where the novices have languished in their carelessness.
Bryant McGill
There was only one reality, and Christ was Lord over all of it, or none.
Eric Metaxas
When your eyes are fixed on the horizon of eternity, it affects your vision for motherhood.
Gloria Furman
Politicians compete for the highest offices. Business tycoons scramble for a bigger and bigger piece of the pie. Armies march and scientists study and philosophers philosophise and preachers preach and labourers sweat. But in that silent baby, lying in that humble manger, there pulses more potential power and wisdom and grace and aliveness than all the rest of us can imagine.
Brian D. McLaren
all believers should “submit to each other out of reverence for Christ.” In many ways, wives should submit to their husbands in the same way any believer should submit to other believers, specifically by living according to the lifestyle the apostle Paul lays out earlier in the chapter. This mutual submission is an accountability to be held to God’s standards, an accountability in which both husband and wife are called to participate.
Janet Boynes
Stop comparing or boast at your victories. He was referring to enormous vitality and strength of God of Jesus seeking union with us. The living acts of a Christian become somehow the acts of Christ.
Brennan Manning
Let not him who accepts light in an instant despise him who gropes months in shadows.
Elisabeth Elliot
Any religious person who says he does not really need human friends because God is his Friend is calling God a liar because He's the One Who says we also need human friends.
Mark Driscoll
It takes a while for revelry to turn to reverence, and much repetition of truth to eventual turn young zeal into habitual channels for good.
Elisabeth Elliot
Many pastors have been reduced to secular "mentors" and "coaches" in exchange for authentic disciplers of men.
John Paul Warren
With your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs under control, you can have as much as the richest man and be as peaceful as a Buddhist monk . You can experience inner-happiness and euphoric love.
Maddy Malhotra
If you repeat your negative memories in your mind and feel self-pity, then YOU are both the abuser and the victim - not those who wronged you in the past. Your present and future will be happier if you take control of your thoughts.
Maddy Malhotra
Lukewarm living and claiming Christ's name simultaneously is utterly disgusting to God.
Francis Chan
...there is still a need for those of us nestled deep within the Christian bubble to look beyond the status quo and critically assess the degree to which we are really living biblically.
Francis Chan
Those who are not true leaders will just affirm people at their own immature level.
Richard Rohr
Be ruthless in one important area: Yourself. Be ruthless about your commitment to Christ. Be ruthless about your intellectual growth. Be ruthless about finishing well. One of the biggest areas we should be ruthless about is our time. How much time do you spend complaining about your problems to people who can't help you solve them? How much time do you talk when you should be doing? When it comes to others, be gracious. But when it comes to you and your time, be ruthless.
Phil Cooke
The big idea here is not, have you sinned, but are you changing?
Mark Driscoll
An animal will conquer others. A Spirit-filled man conquers himself – self-discipline, self-control.
Mark Driscoll
you don’t have to live in community long to realize that lives which are blessed and instructive are still flawed. The grace of the gospel isn’t only that the Word was made flesh in Jesus, but also that the eternal Word is made present in weak and wonderful people.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove